Abi and the Boy Next Door by Kelsie Stelting

Author:Kelsie Stelting [Stelting, Kelsie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-12-07T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

The gym lights came on, signaling the official end of the dance. Without the music and blue lights, the gym seemed a lot less glamorous, but nothing could take me off this cloud.

My entire friend group stood in a loose circle, Andrew with his hand wrapped around Skye’s waist, Frank and Stormy holding hands, Macy and Leanne standing shoulder to shoulder, and Roberto, Evan, and me with our hands in our pockets.

“What now?” I asked.

With a sly grin, Stormy looked around the group. “Think she’s ready?”

Macy raised her eyebrows. “You know I’m in.”

Frank hooked his thumbs in his belt loops, still holding Stormy’s hand. “Same.”

Andrew and Skye looked at each other, communicating wordlessly.

“Definitely,” Andrew said.

Roberto shrugged. “Why not?”

What was this all about?

Everyone looked to Evan.

“Should have done it sooner,” Evan said.

Leanne folded her arms across her chest with an annoyed expression. “Anyone happen to have a bus we can drive?”

“What do you mean?” Stormy asked her.

“Well, there are nine of us.”

“We’ll just take Frank’s ’burban,” Stormy said.

Leanne blew her bangs out of her eyes. “Fine.”

I watched the exchange between the two of them, thinking I wouldn’t mind being in a separate car. The looks they were all giving me, like I was about to be dunked in a splash tank or something, left me unsettled. Plus, so much had happened in one night, and I needed to go home and process it—journal about it or something.

“Let’s go?” Frank asked everyone, but looked at Stormy.

She nodded, and they led us out of the gym like the lead car in a NASCAR race. Frank’s beat-up, old Suburban waited for us in the thinning parking lot.

Nothing seemed to develop a pecking order like deciding who had to sit all cramped up in the very back seat. Of course Evan, Mr. Perpetually Polite, ended up back there, so I did too.

“Couples in the back,” Stormy said. “You don’t mind sitting on Drew’s lap, do you, Skye?”

In the glow of the car’s headlamp, I saw Andrew roll his eyes. “She’s already my girlfriend, Storm. I don’t need any help.”

Stormy waggled her eyebrows and turned around in her seat to face the front of the car. “Give Evan a hand, then, will ya?”

Macy wolf-whistled into the night sky. “Ow ow ow!”

“Ignore them,” Evan said, putting a hand on my knee.

Involuntarily, I jerked my leg away and immediately regretted it. Evan tried to play it off, but the hurt was as plain as the freckles on his face.

Andrew started the climb into the back seat with us. “Incoming.”

Skye followed, and just as promised, sat on Andrew’s lap.

Evan kept his hands folded in his own lap, staring down at the seat in front of him. I couldn’t tell him sorry in front of everyone without embarrassing him more. But even if I could, I wouldn’t know what to say.

How could I tell him that I wasn’t sure where I wanted this to go, whatever this was? That for the last few years the only people to touch

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